“Well, well,” said Phil. “These are a surprise. Where did you find them?”
“In a fire-resistant safe in that caravan that burned down over the weekend. It belonged to a man by the name of Roland Gardiner.”
“The fire you had to leave dinner for?”
“That’s right.”
Phil leaned over and studied the drawings closely. Annie could see the concentration furrow his brow. When he had finished, he turned back to Annie. “Anything else found with them?”
“Only some money. No more drawings, if that’s what you mean.”
“No documents, letters, auction catalogs, nothing like that?”
“No.”
“Pity.” Phil took a large magnifying glass from a box on the bookshelf and went back to the sketches, studying them more closely. “It certainly looks like authentic period paper,” he said. “I might get a better sense if I could touch it, too, though.”
“Sorry,” Annie said. “It’s still to be tested for fingerprints.”
“Whose fingerprints would you expect to find?”
“You never know. We might find the victim’s. And Thomas McMahon’s, if there’s a link between them.”
“You think McMahon forged these?”
“I don’t know. That’s partly why I came to you.”
“But how would you know it was this McMahon’s finger-prints? I mean, I assume if he’d been badly burned – both of them, in fact – then their hands…”
“Well, that’s true,” said Annie. “Unless either of them has a criminal record for some reason…” Then she remembered the book Jack Mellor said Gardiner had lent him. There was a good chance his fingerprints would be on that. Or perhaps even on some object from where he used to live with his wife, on the Daleside Estate. Thomas McMahon might be more difficult, but she was sure that if they looked they’d find his fingerprints somewhere. Whitaker’s shop, for example. “We have to try,” she said.
“How do you get fingerprints from paper? I mean, if they’re not immediately visible through a magnifying glass.”
“I leave it to the boffins,” said Annie. “I think they usually use a chemical called ninhydrin, or something similar, but it’s not my area of expertise.”
“Isn’t that a destructive process? Couldn’t it damage the works? If these are genuine Turners…”
“I’m sure that’s something they’ll take into consideration. They can probably use some sort of light source – laser or ultraviolet. I really don’t know, Phil. The technology keeps changing. It’s hard to keep up with. But don’t worry, our fingerprint expert knows what he’s doing. The last thing he’d want to do is to damage a work of art, especially if it’s a genuine one.”
“That’s good,” said Phil. “Then I assume you brought these to me because you want me to tell you if they’re fake or real?”
“That would be a great help,” said Annie. “In fact, anything at all you can tell us about them would be a help.”
“It’s not as easy as all that, you know, especially when they’re covered in plastic. I mean, I can give an opinion off-the-cuff, mostly based on the style, but there are tests, other experts to be consulted, that sort of thing. And the provenance, of course. That would go a long way toward establishing whether it’s genuine or not.”
“I understand,” said Annie. “Off-the-cuff will do fine for now.”
“Well, they’re similar to other Turner sketches in the large sketchbook and pocketbook he used on his 1816 Yorkshire tour, so it might also be possible to do a bit of comparison work with some bona fide originals. Later, of course, when you’ve finished with them.”
“Was it unusual to do more than one sketch of the same sort of thing?”
“Not at all. Turner did dozens of sketches like this for the Richmondshire series. Three sketchbooks full. But that’s the interesting thing: He usually worked in the books, not on loose sheets.”
“So that’s one mark against authenticity?”
Phil smiled at her. “It signals caution, that’s all,” he said. “But genuine or not,” he went on, “this is certainly a beautiful watercolor. Look at that mist swirling around Ingleborough summit. You can almost see it moving. And there’s not a soul around, see? It’s very early in the morning, just after dawn. You can tell by the quality of the light. Turner was always very keen on reproducing time-of-day and weather conditions. And do you see that peacock in the right foreground? Marvelous detail.”
Annie had looked at plenty of paintings in her time, many with her father’s guidance, and was even a passable landscape artist herself, in what little spare time she had, but she lacked the training both in technique and in history and found she always learned something from Phil’s point of view. It was one of the things she liked about him, his knowledge of and passion for art.
“May I ask exactly what makes you think it’s a forgery?” he asked.
“Well, I’m certainly no expert,” Annie said. “It’s just the circumstances of its discovery. In the first place, it seems a bit of a coincidence that this should turn up so soon after the other Turner, don’t you think? And what would Roland Gardiner – the victim in the caravan – be doing owning a Turner watercolor, several sketches and about fifteen hundred pounds in cash? When you consider what we talked about yesterday, about McMahon’s buying up old eighteenth-and nineteenth-century books for the endpapers from Leslie Whitaker, then… I don’t know. Perhaps we’re trying to make a connection where none exists, but you have to admit, it’s a bit of a strong coincidence when you put it all together. Two murders in two days – three, if you count the girl – an artist buying old paper, these Turners, the money.”
“You think this Whitaker character might have something to do with it?”
“It’s possible,” said Annie.
“Did they know one another, Roland Gardiner and the artist?”
“We don’t know. Not yet. But we’re trying to link them. I just wanted to get your take on whether we were dealing with the real thing here, the watercolor in particular.”
“Well, it looks genuine enough to me on first examination. If not, then it’s a damn good forgery. To be absolutely certain, though, I’d have to hang on to it for a while, perhaps show it to some colleagues, conduct a few tests. Fingerprints examination, as we did with the other one. Radiography, ultraviolet. Infrared photography. Computer image processing. Pigment analysis, that sort of thing. I’d also try to track down its provenance, if any exists. And I can’t do that, can I?”
“I’m afraid not,” said Annie. “Not yet, at any rate. As I said, there are fingerprints to be considered. And it may be evidence.”
“Evidence of what?”
“I don’t know.” She grinned at him. “That’s just the way the job is sometimes.”
Phil smiled back. “Mine, too. I suppose you could say we’re both detectives, in a way.”
“That’s one way of looking at it. Anyway, as soon as we’re done with it, I’ll ask you to look into its authenticity a bit further, if you’d still be willing to help.”
“Of course. I’ve signed the Official Secrets Act, haven’t I? Look, how rude of me. I never offered you any refreshments. It must have been the excitement of seeing the Turners. Tea, coffee, something stronger?”
“I can’t,” said Annie, carefully putting the papers back in her briefcase. “Too much on right now.”
“Not even a tea break?”
Annie laughed. “Sometimes I don’t even get dinner, as you know quite well.” She leaned forward and kissed him quickly on the lips. He tried to make it into more, but she slipped free. “No. Really. I have to go.”
He spread his hands. “Okay. I know when I’m beaten. See you tonight?”